


Point Me in the Right Direction

by larkingstock



Series: connect the dots [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, issues with shooting people, what are friends for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-30 09:47:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock
Summary: Tim and Rachel go from having a drink after work to naked stress-relief in his apartment.(prequel to "Perhaps")





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **me:** you know that sounded like fun huh  
>  **me, 20k words later:** huh
> 
>  _You having any second thoughts about the shooting?  
>  Not really.  
> You will. But if you ever have any serious doubts, ask me. I'll tell ya. You did what had to be done._  
> \--2.04 For Blood or Money

Rachel stares at the condensation forming on her glass of beer.

She doesn't even _like_ beer.

She runs the tip of her thumb through it, feeling the cool wet pooling under her touch and drizzling down to ring the napkin. Feeling Tim watching her.

When he stopped by her desk tonight with a simple, "Let's go get a drink," it was surprise as much as anything that made her agree. She isn't a "drinks after work" kind of woman. And in the last week she's shared bourbon in the chief's office and now she's staring at a beer in some nondescript bar with their rookie deputy.

She has a strong feeling the two are connected, which is why she's annoyed enough to mentally consign Tim to rookiehood, a label hardly befitting him even if he has been in the Marshals Service only barely a year. It's not like he's short on experience being in _a_ service. He landed on their linoleum miles ahead of Nelson from his first scuffed army boot print, and Nelson's been with the Marshals twice as long as _she_ has.

However, it hadn't annoyed her enough to just say she's changed her mind and walk right back out, so now here she is. Staring at her unappetizing beer. Across from a skinny white boy hung up somewhere in his own overlap, Afghanistan to Kentucky, war to peacetime, soldier to lawman and all his demons in between, watching her with eyes that are too dark, like thunderclouds where the blue keeps taking you by surprise, and eyebrows so light against his skin they sometimes may as well not exist. He hasn't blinked much. It can all be a mite creepy on occasion, but she hasn't wanted to hurt his feelings.

"Anyone ever tell you you need feeding up?" she mutters uncharitably. Lord, this is so stupid. She doesn't _even like_ beer.

Tim looks mildly...is that _disappointment_ with her? "That's what we're starting with. Really? You quizzin' me on my nutritional intake?"

"You rather I ask what even is the point of your eyebrows?" she snaps out before she can think better, stung at the implication she's failed to meet his standards for being an interesting conversationalist.

He looks shocked for less than a second before he's busting into all-out laughter, his face all creasing up and his eyes going startlingly warm. Good grief, the man has actual dimples--Rachel doesn't think she's ever really noticed them before. He looks like a dorky ferret.

It's _painfully_ cute.

Fine, maybe white boy can stay. Rachel relaxes a little against the back of her stool and takes a sip of her beer.

Yeah. She still doesn't like it.

Tim knocks back the last swallows of his beer and reaches over. "Give me that." He sets it on his side of the table and slides off his stool. "What do you take instead?"

She doesn't even do this enough to have a drinks preference. She should probably figure one out so she won't get caught short again, but right now she's just...tired. "I don't know. Bourbon?"

She doesn't hate it and it's probably as good a taste as any to develop while working in Kentucky. By the time he gets back, she's decided she's got a question. "--Thanks. So. What were we _supposed_ to start with?"

Tim is not a stupid guy. If she were in a less tetchy mood overall, maybe she'd acknowledge, at least to herself, how much she likes that about working with him. Never mind how he possesses that knack of making himself good company when he wants, at times it's nothing less than a crying relief to have someone alongside who's so keenly competent. Even more so when that person is a hundred times more reliable than Raylan Givens, although admittedly that isn't a high bar to clear.

So the fact that she just sweetly, belligerently put Tim directly on the spot is not lost on him.

"Oh, I don't know," he drawls. "How about...that moment, when all the debriefing's done. When you've run it through your head a hundred times 'til it's all grooves. You got the words all arranged, all neat and tidy along their lines, know it backwards and forwards and upside down...And then, the talking stops. You're sittin' there. That silence. No one listening, or looking, or asking. And all the neat lined-up words can't hold it back anymore, the reality. That was _you_. You pulled your trigger. You deliberately took someone's life. You've killed a person, now."

His eyes are calm and nothing but kind, watching, sending each measured sentence into her like bullet following bullet through the center of a bullseye. Rachel wonders, sincerely wonders, if this is how he looks staring down from his end of a sniper rifle.

She's got a drink she doesn't actively dislike in front of her, which is the sort of thing just made for this kind of situation, though to be honest if it were still the beer it probably wouldn't make a difference. She takes a steadying swallow, and keeps her hand from shaking through sheer force of will.

Unfortunately, she can't quite say the same for her voice. "I guess that answers my question if y'all are trying to coddle me 'cause I'm a woman."

He just looks at her, lapsing back to that laconic default of his.

Half of her wants to bolt the rest of her drink and get the hell out of there, go home and spend another night staring at the ceiling willing herself to get more than three hours' sleep. The other half of her, with a whole lot more self-respect, is clear on the fact that she threw down the gauntlet and he came back on it, hard. And that part of her is not going anywhere.

"So, what. You going to hold my hand through the process, too? Gonna tell me I did what I had to do?"

Now he blinks. "Why the fuck would I do that?"

He seems genuinely mystified, but Rachel hasn't paced out the full length of her misgivings yet. "Because of how you just went through it yourself? Jess Timmons, the pregnant prisoner transport you boys mislaid...?"

"Oh. That." Tim snorts flatly.

"So Art didn't put you on me to make sure I'm...however it is I'm supposed to be doing, right now?"

Tim's fingers glide down the glass she'd been drawing wet patterns on. They're long and lean like the rest of him. The number of times she's known and seen him shoot someone in the line of their duty, and it's never occurred to her, the physical reality of those fingers curled around his weapon. The index curling, squeezing on the trigger. She herself has logged so much time on the range that the action is virtually meaningless.

She feels a little sick.

He's still watching her.

"This is the bad part," he says, so quietly it shouldn't carry, but the bar isn't that noisy and it feels like they're sinking down into their own little tunnel, resonating and amplifying and enfolding them with their secrets. The secret of bringing death.

He's holding her eyes, and it seems like he'd understand if she looked away. If she needed to protect herself. She won't. She _refuses_. She's so focused on that, she doesn't realize how her index finger has been sweeping back and forth at her glass like a hysterical windshield wiper until she feels the press of the back of _his_ index finger, stilling it gently.

It's warmer than hers.

It's a simple gesture, and potentially, theoretically, incredibly disturbing if she were to let herself think about it, but she can't, because all she can feel is a terribly comforting sense of reprieve. It won't last. She wants to hold onto it anyway.

She breaks the connection sharply and drains a good half of her drink. It burns a line down to her stomach and she pulls herself in straight, spine tight. "What is?"

He doesn't seem offended that she's brushed off his weird version of holding her hand and telling her everything's going to be okay. He hardly seems to have noticed it at all. "That you...you're not who you were, anymore," he's saying, awkwardly, taking so much care over locating his words he can't pay attention to how they come out. "And...you're not sure who you _are_. One split second, everything you know about yourself's changed. Everything you look at's different, all...shifting, and you don't know where it'll all end up or what that means, about you. And it's...Uncertainty is scary."

"Okay, Deepak Chopra."

His mouth quirks in some sad approximation of a smile, and he's not fooled for a second. He only leans forward, elbows on table, oddly intense. She can't seem to look away. "I wasn't alone, Rach. My first kill. With the Rangers--we were in it all, together, over there. You still had to deal with your own shit, but...you had others, around always. With the same shit. Here..." He breathes out, looking too old to looking too young in a single lungful of air. "...people are alone."

Rachel is silent. Churning. He's sitting there just radiating care, so much of it that he, of all people, will open up and tell her that stuff, not a hint of defensive sarcasm to be heard. Even as she lashes and pushes at him. Everything's one big ball of pain and she can't pretend it's not there anymore. Everything _hurts_.

She doesn't even think before she shoves her hand at his, grabbing tight and holding on. It's clumsy and stupid and he doesn't say a word, just grips her right back, easy in it like this all makes perfect sense to him. She's staring at his skin, his larger hand wrapped around hers. She can't understand _anything_.

"Held hands with a lot of your Ranger buddies, did you?" she asks, spiteful and awful and still clutching at him tight, because nothing in her life makes sense and a few months ago everything in her life made sense and she's worked so hard and she _hates this_.

"When we weren't braidin' each other's hair."

She thinks the soft keening noise she makes as she slowly folds forward might be a laugh, or the closest she can come anyway, letting her forehead come to rest on the no doubt unsanitary bar table. She keeps her eyes closed, arm bent above her head, and Tim is not a lifeline, he is _not_. But she hasn't let go yet.

"All right, Deepak," she says at the table. "Tell me the answer to the universe."

There's just a tiny shift in his hand before he says, dryly, "Well, I drink a lot."

She wheezes harder, and it kind of curls her halfway back, so she may as well sit all the way up again, still shaking with it a little. She sighs and shakes her head. "God, I miss sex."

She doesn't really think much of it until she feels Tim go still. "Uh," he says.

Rachel's eyes flash from her right hand in his, to his frozen face, and now she really is laughing. "Relax, white boy. It's not a come on, I just...I just _miss sex_. That's all." She finds that the thumb of her free left hand is working around the naked base of her ring finger. Force of habit.

"Yeah, when did that happen?" he asks.

He still sounds awkward enough that she takes pity and lets go of his hand, and plays more with her bare finger instead. She didn't always wear her ring anyway--she's never been romantic enough to disregard the practical advantages to how wearing it, or not, shapes reactions to her--but it seems she's a little more sentimental than she thought, because there came a point recently when she simply couldn't stand looking at it on herself anymore. She keeps it in her wallet for just in case, and no one at work has said anything yet, but it seems Tim at least noticed the change in pattern.

She sighs. "You mean when did we separate, or when was the writing on the wall?"

"Ah." Tim makes an understanding grimace, but this one's not personal experience, it's from the outside, from just being a keen student of human behavior like all the best marshals are. "Wanna...talk about it?"

Rachel half-laughs again, and he snorts, because if she'd wanted to blab all her personal problems all around the office, she would've done it already. But they're sharing and caring tonight, right? So what the hell. "It's...nothing's official. But..."

But she stopped wearing her ring. She's moved back in with her _mother_. Sure, it makes it easier to help Ma with Nick, now. _But_.

"I'm beginning to feel like it was a lost cause from the beginning. Somehow it never really occurred to Joe I was serious about building my career in the Marshals. He could roll with me being a sexy gun-toting badass in a pantsuit. That's a turn-on. But I guess the reality of him at home every night making dinner while I'm out all hours, not just chasing the bad guys but dotting every i, crossing every t, not giving anyone any extra excuses to dismiss the damn good work I do...well, the longer that went on..."

"The less of a turn-on it became?"

Maybe it's Tim's annoyed disbelief on her behalf, or maybe it's the alcohol working, that makes her plume coyly at him. "Nooo... _that_ was never a problem. The sex has always been good. Who knows, maybe that's why it took us so long to realize maybe the rest just really isn't ever going to change. We don't want the same things and we can't make them work together. The very definition of irreconcilable differences."

She hasn't noticed how morose her tone has become until he says brightly, "Hey. Call it being the very definition of a sexy gun-toting badass in a pantsuit. With an ex with his head up his ass."

Did she call Tim a mite creepy? He is _sweet_. And adorable. Even with the eyebrows. She raises what's left in her glass. "I'll drink to that."

They clink and drink, and when he asks if she wants another, she just nods happily. This was a _great_ idea. She's gonna make bourbon her drink order. It works for her.

Tim returns with two, and slides hers across. "So. Tell me more about all this good sex."

He timed it perfectly. The bourbon almost goes up her nose, and that unpleasantness, as well as the ensuing coughing and sputtering and going hot, blood flooding everywhere from her armpits on up, makes her think maybe she shouldn't be so hasty about picking out her drink. Or maybe she just needs to be more particular about her drinking partners. She glares at him through watering eyes, and he just lifts those eyebrows, way too pleased with himself.

Rachel wants to say something shocking, wicked, _lewd_ , to come back at this gauntlet like he had with hers. She _could_ , she thinks. She's a grown woman not embarrassed by sex, or by sex she had with Joe. It's not like she couldn't form the words up in her mouth and say them into the world. It just...that kind of raunchy talk, that's never been her. It would be fake, and she has a feeling fronting like that won't hit any bullseyes. At least not with things this intimate.

So she lets go of the competition. She doesn't believe in winning the wrong way. It wasn't a real question anyway...only, now she's thinking about it.

"Joe is...fun." She puts her thumb to her bottom lip, rubbing thoughtfully. "He's...lusty, full of life. He sings, he dances, he makes love...cooks good food. He's a happy man. He wants to build a...a _life_. A good life, full of good things. I thought..."

She can't finish that thought in her head, much less say it. She presses her thumb up for a moment, both lips moist with alcohol where kisses used to go. "He liked to touch me. You know? Not just boobs and ass, though," she laughs easily, "you better believe he spent plenty of time on those too. No, just...those long, lazy strokes, up and down my arm while we watched tv...or my waist. He really liked the small of my back, for some reason. And that I'm ticklish behind my knees. And, ohh, the kissing. That's how I knew to marry him. It's how I knew he'd be good in bed in the first place..."

She's feeling her own fingertips brush down, under her jaw, down, slow, fanning along the juncture of her throat. Searching out her own body without Joe. Discovering...it's still there.

Which seems a surprising thing to be so surprised by. She focuses on Tim, recalled back from those sweet, hazy, _young_ days of courtship, not just to the reality of herself now but where she is and who with. She makes her grin a little wry, and shrugs, but she's still soft with it and she thinks it shows. She's not sure she minds right now. "Kissing for hours, that man."

Across the table, Tim's mouth has opened. "I...can see why you'd miss it."

Which is an odd comment, since--does he get she wasn't actually talking about sex, there? Then again, men have a way of seeing it everywhere...

...And now she is, too. Sex. Sex without Joe. Sex with someone not Joe, her body being touched, being stroked, held...thrust into, strong and good. She has to close her eyes suddenly, pressing her thighs together against the force of it.

Tim asks a slightly strangled, "What?" and she realizes she's made a sound. She'd...oh, sweet Jesus. She'd moaned.

"Oh _Lord_ ," she groans. "No, I just--it just hit me." She squirms a little in her seat, and she's not proud of it. "I...These last few weeks. Usually--it used to be--the job would have me all wound up, stressed out, and I'd come home to Joe. Who was more than happy to help me work it off. I guess my body-- _I_ \--got used to getting that sex, kind of...on tap, when I'm stressed. And now I've been having all the stress and none of the sex." She groans again, ruefully. "No wonder I'm not getting any sleep."

She looks over. Tim's gone a little pink. "What do you do?" she asks, curiously. "Other than drink, I mean. No offense but I don't think that's going to be my resort of choice."

"I." His breath is heavier. It's beginning to occur to her that she might have hit a bullseye or two after all. The thought of that is...more interesting than she expected it to be. He meets her eyes, shrugging helplessly, laughter playing around his mouth. "Well, I go to bars and pick up women."

It takes a second to rebound, and then Rachel's laughing too, and trying to ignore the uptick in bloodflow that hasn't got the joke. She looks around at the bar, and then down at herself. "Well...hm. I don't know I can get into that, either." Joe's only the second man she's ever slept with, although that's not information she really wants to share with Tim, and the idea of pathetically chasing some kind of sex lottery with just random guys she finds at a bar..."Besides, this long at our job, I look around at men, it's not potential bedmates I'm seeing. The public in general, really."

Her thumb's back at her lip, working away. She's kind of gotten used to Tim watching her so intently by now, so she just clocks that he gets it, and tries out the next thing. She's never been much of a fan of doing all the work herself, but--desperate times. "What about porn? Maybe--"

"No."

She looks at him in surprise, how definite he is. "You...really? I thought men, and porn..."

He shrugs with a surprisingly sour look. "Same kinda problem. After...You gotta work so hard to block out everything going on, you can hardly even concentrate on getting off. Then it just starts being depressing."

"Oh. Well... _shit_." Not that she'd been holding out much hope. It's never appealed before, probably one of those ideas that only sound good in a sex haze. She shifts again. And again.

She...might not have been trying to _ease_ the ache, that second one.

She pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. It's all getting away from her. If she had a clear head, maybe she could work something out, reestablish order over herself, but right now, her entire body thrumming to remind her about the stress-sex she's been denying it for days on end...longer, if she counts the unrelieved stress of finally breaking up with Joe...

This is just a big old sex Catch-22 and Rachel doesn't appreciate it.

"Rach?"

Tim still sounds strained, which is amusing, but unhelpful, so she doesn't bother opening her eyes. "Yeah."

"Look, this...I'll only say it once, and...So, if it's...unwelcome, you can just. Okay?"

Strained doesn't cut it. Flustered is more like. She opens one eye. "Tim, _what_ are you talking about."

"I have a penis."

And now she is right there in the flustered place with him, and trying desperately not to laugh, and failing. She chokes out a, " _What_ \--"

He's actually looking relieved at her laughter, by which she guesses he was worrying she would be angry. Or insulted. But how can she get insulted by that little boyish grin, gaining confidence in its earnest offer, when he continues, "I have a penis. And you're welcome to it. If you need one."

She is practically doubled up by now, and his grin is only growing. At her laughing at him, at his offer, and she's distantly glad that he isn't any more insulted or touchy about it than she had been, because good God could that get awkward fast. But his eyes are doing that warm thing again, and he truly doesn't seem to be expecting anything either way, and that offer, and that _smile_ \--it's just the sweetest thing ever.

"Oh," she says, breathless, wiping away tears, "oh, thank you, Tim. That's very--considerate--"

"Just at your service, ma'am."

Rachel _shrieks_ with laughter, ugly snort and all, and Tim's lost all claim to deadpan, he's resorted to trying to hide his goofy snickering against the mouth of his glass.

"Oh God, Tim. This was shameless."

His leer is the next thing to be ruined by uncontainable giggliness, and he pulls a hand over his face, and it's not wrong--is it?--to notice the length of his tan fingers again, agile and assured.

She bites her lip. It's not wrong. But it is in no way innocent, either.

She feels the drag of her teeth releasing the pillow of her lip like the sensation's brand-new. She looks, and...

He's got pretty lips. Thin, to the point of shy. But pretty, and sweetly curved, and...also agile.

They twist, wry and deprecating. "Look, if you're gonna be having my back on a case, I'd just want you rested and on your game, is all. The others'd probably appreciate the thought too."

"Ohhhh, you're taking one for the team." She nods, trying to ignore her sudden suspicion that Tim would be a good kisser.

"Fuck the team."

She feels _her_ lips twist, and gives him a wicked look. "That's taking it a bit far for me, but I guess if that's how it went in the Rangers..."

His crack of laughter sets her off again too, and she _knows_ he'd be a good kisser.

Oh, Lord God in Heaven.

She's seriously considering this.

And now that she is, she's not having trouble finding reasons why she should. She's having trouble finding reasons why she _shouldn't_.

She barely hears him, saying something about, "...'cause sleeping with your rifle isn't as fun as it..."

"Okay."

"...sounds..."

Tim's long double-take happens at some remove, because all Rachel can hear is the sound of her own voice when it said _Okay_.

"...Okay?" The uncertainty in his question isn't asking what she meant, it's asking if she's sure.

She thinks, _tries_ to think, for another second or two, but the thing is..."...Yeah. _Okay_."

...She's not sure, because she's not sure of anything, and she _is_ sure, because she's tired of being on the receiving end of that equation. She wants to charge ahead and let uncertainty catch its own damn self up. She wants to do this and say _to hell with it_ , and if Tim's okay with offering, then yeah. Yeah, she wants to take him up on it.

He stares at her for another two seconds, and then he's sliding to his feet. "Okay. Come on."

She's glad he's pretty universally quick on the uptake, because she has a feeling if they lingered over their half-finished drinks like it's some kind of date instead of just sex--instead of just him putting himself _at her service_ \--it'd only give some sensible part of her time to start kicking up a fuss, chiefly about how she would _never_ normally consider this, and she is not currently interested in hearing anything Sensible Rachel has to say. Sensible Rachel can get stuffed in a box right now for all she cares.

She follows the wedge of his back into the crowd between them and the door, and she's taken two steps when she feels his hand wrap around hers, not losing her. The physical reality slams home past all those _okays_ , giving Sensible Rachel one last extra second to signal frantically as she drops the lid on her. She lets Tim lead her out through the clumps of people, until they're on the curb and his hand's leaving hers to signal a cab.

Along with the bar's proximity to the courthouse and semi-decent liquor, the ease of getting cabs is one of the points in its favor, according to Tim. Turns out he's right because it feels about three seconds before one is pulling up next to them. And in those three seconds, she's had just enough fresh air and clarity to decide Sensible Rachel had made a good point.

Tim opens the cab door for her, and she steps forward, the curving metal thick and physical between their bodies. She looks up into his strangely-dark, strangely-blue eyes, and feels words far more final and certain than "okay" form in her mouth.

"No kissing."

Pretty universally quick on the uptake. His gaze rakes over her, reading she doesn't know what, until it comes to rest on her mouth for a few inscrutable moments. But he just nods agreement and closes the door when she gets in, jogging easily around to the other side.

She sits and watches the darkening streets slide by, her eyes tracking streetlights flicking past. She doesn't want to think about how she's never actually done this kind of thing before and doesn't have more than a vague idea of what the rules are. She doesn't want to worry about Tim working that out. She doesn't want uncertainty about what she's about to do, and who that makes her _now_ , to catch her up. And that's when she realizes she didn't even take note when Tim gave the address to the driver.

She feels herself go very still.

The lapse might be small in the greater scheme of all the other stuff chasing around in her head these last few weeks...or last few minutes. But it is a shock, and that shock is a cold, clear mirror held up to her, a moment of strange but total surety: she trusts him.

Rachel looks over, Tim's eyes down somewhere on the footwell between them, rising to hers when he senses her movement. She frowns slightly, studying him. She hasn't known him that long, really, but then how long had Raylan known him when he walked into that house weapon holstered, entrusting his life to Tim's ability as a sniper? Or put the life of an _unborn child_ and its mother in those sure hands? How long had it taken Art to start assigning Tim the tricky, tedious cases that had always gone to Rachel before then, because the chief's as fussy as she is about getting certain things done right? How long did it take her to start indicating to Art her preference to work with Tim, when Art could allocate it, not just to help train him up but because of that very relief and confidence in having him as a partner?

He's just looking back at her, unreadable in the pools of streetlight winding away, and really, she knows next to nothing about him. Except for how he can sit in silence for hours upon hours without giving the slightest hint of self-consciousness, and shoot the shit for almost as long without giving the slightest hint of personal information.

Except for how tonight, he sat across from her and told her about pain and fear far away from home and loneliness when he came back.

Except for how she, too, has and would trust him with her life. And he has and would do the same.

And, in all those months, when only days, only _minutes_ , can be more than long enough, not once has she felt he viewed her with anything less--anything _more_ \--than plain respect, for her skills and for her person. Not because of her skin, and not because of her sex.

She's so damn raw, mentally and emotionally exhausted and she can't remember such an insidious sense of loss of control even when her father was dying...maybe not even when she lost Shawnee. But the impulse to trust Tim with her body like this might not be such a surreal and...un-sensible thing as it feels. A reckless--thrilling--leap. But not altogether unjustified. And that doesn't sound such a bad thing to be...for tonight, anyhow.

They've drawn up at his apartment building, and he's so quick and precise, paying the driver and coming around to her side. Rachel already knows--Rachel's _body_ already knows--from those months with him in the office and in the field, that this is no greater alacrity than he usually moves with. Yet the anticipation of every next step makes it feel...something new.

It's so strange, and she's suddenly glad she hasn't known him too long. Doing this with someone she's known for years would be unimaginable, and for some reason the thought has her smiling amusement up at him, holding the door for her as she gets out. "Thank you."

Tim's searching her face again, and it strikes her he might have been wondering if she was going to turn tail and run. Stay in the cab and give _her_ address. If he was, he doesn't know her that well, because the thought hadn't even occurred to her. Now, he only cocks his head at her thanks with another twist of a smile. "What are friends for?"

He closes the door behind her gently and the cab drives off. The sharp angles of his face are etched even sharper by the harsh streetlight as he looks down at her.

"I'm not sure." Rachel reaches out, heart pounding, and deliberately slides her hand into his. "Let's go find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name of the series and this fic from [Dots by Woodes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm73FaqSgJ0) because I really am shit at titles. Also I figure it's fair since it's not music _either_ of them would listen to, and meanwhile I'm a total sap and this whole series, if I keep writing it, is probably going to end up friends-to-lovers eventually so: fair warning.


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel looks around Tim's apartment. She doesn't know what she was expecting. It's not big, but there's no sense of clutter, because there's almost no sense of _anything_. The walls are white. The closed curtains are just blocks of gray. The only things to be seen in the sadly beige-accented kitchen are a few bits and pieces of crockery, neatly stacked in the drying rack on the sink. It's spartan to the point of painful. Even the couch, coffee table, and the couple of low bookshelves with his tv barely make a dent.

He's gone into the bedroom, leaving her out here. She calls out. "You ever consider putting something on your walls, or something?"

"Tried. Just made it worse," he calls back. "You want me to offer you another drink or anything?"

"No. Thanks." He reappears, and for all her boldness outside, maybe she's still a little jumpy with not knowing exactly how this is supposed to go. "What...?"

He holds up a hand, a condom in its wrapper between two fingers.

"Oh. Right."

Most times, people can't tell she's blushing. Maybe they're just not watching for it, though, because Tim runs his eyes over her face and quirks a smile. "Been a while, huh?"

Which is just unnecessarily smug. " _That_ , yes."

He tosses it onto the coffee table, and somehow him doing that makes her heart rate kick up, thready and gathering south of her belt. She swallows.

"Uh huh. Sure you remember how this all goes?"

...He's doing it on purpose. Provoking to distract her, because he can see she's nervous. Rachel narrows her eyes, her temper jumping up quick. "Save your pity for yourself in case we snap your scrawny ass in two."

He stops smiling. And then he's stalking over and she refuses to budge, just glaring up at him when he stops close, kissing-distance, though of course he doesn't. Doesn't touch her at all. Doesn't say anything at all.

So she keeps glaring, and the rugged pound of her heart keeps preparing her body for him, aching and kind of wanting to hit him, a little bit, until she can't take it anymore. " _What_."

Tim takes her hand, but not like before. He's got her eyes locked with his, his mouth tight, and she's got no idea if it's a challenge or _what_ it is when he presses her palm flat to his chest. All her muscles are twanging like a rubber band stretched too long, but he's hard and warm under the fabric of his shirt, and he's breathing just as fast as she is and it all kind of just...slowly eases along her arm and loosens through her. He holds her there long enough that she starts to want to ask _what_ , again, but she also...doesn't want to.

And that's when he slides her hand down. Slowly, his hold around her hand not so hard that she couldn't pull back, if she wanted. She can't tear her eyes away, his drilling down into her as she feels the ripple of his stomach muscles, both their breathing coming higher and tighter, the square line of his belt, and... _she's_ the one to suck in the gasp, when he curls her palm around the bulge of his erection.

The heat and firmness he's gripping her against makes Rachel's knees want to buckle. Her eyes are wide on his, and the want to ask _what_ can't seem to coalesce out of all of her other wants drifting in the haze of silence. Somehow, he sees it anyway. Maybe he was watching for it.

" _I am here for you_ ," he states, low and as insistent as his erection in their hands. "And I _want_ to be here for you."

"Oh..." Rachel licks the lips of her dry mouth, and tries again. "...Okay." She really, really wishes she hadn't said no kissing, because she has no idea how they smooth into this otherwise. And standing there, captured fast by the naked intensity of his face even more than her hand held against his body, she has also never been so glad of a rule in her life.

She cannot afford to know what kissing Tim Gutterson would feel like. She's aware she would have found that sentiment laughable only an hour ago.

"So--" She licks her lips again, trying to smooth down the crackle of her voice. "So what happens now?"

The softest hint of a smile whispers over his mouth for her, but she'll never know what it feels or tastes like, and...and that is a _good_ thing, she reminds herself. It takes a few seconds to realize she's just basically announced to him she doesn't know how to do this casual sex thing. She's starting to wonder how _anyone_ does this casual sex thing, it's beginning to feel seriously like a contradiction in terms.

"Now...?" He releases her, and she doesn't even notice her hand dropping away directionlessly to her side again, because his long sure fingers are stroking under her jaw, the side of her neck, and her body is _so there_ for it, swamping her brain right out. Oh _God_ that feels good, sparkling right up to the top of her skull, and down, down, breasts, sex, ass, her ticklish knees, her curling toes. She feels herself moan shamelessly, feels his jaw brush the side of her cheek and has no concept of that being strange and new. "Now," he says softly in her ear, the roughness of his voice sending shivers careening through her, "we get you naked."

Oh God. Yes. _Yes_. Naked. She gets that part, she _likes_ that part.

Rachel opens eyes she doesn't even remember closing, helping those long fingers get under her suit jacket and shuck it off her, tugging her shirt up, off, little incidental brushes against her skin all the while and filling her with nothing but sheer physical need. He pauses for a second but she's got no time for his eyes running down over her bra cupping her breasts, she's got other things on her mind, gripping the lapels of his jacket and just rudely pushing it off him, she doesn't care.

She's yanking at the hem of his shirt, and he steps back and pulls it off himself and it's not like she actually would have ripped it, but whatever, it's easier that way and he's...he is not nearly as skinny as she was expecting. There's still nothing to spare on him, but there's more lean, sinewy muscle going on there than she'd pictured. Strong enough to wear the heavy, angry curls of the tattoo she'd only glimpsed once and mostly forgotten about, stark black lines carried solid on that hard-warm breathing chest, and...he always moves well. Confident, that unobtrusive swagger, he's a US Marshal, he was an _Army Ranger_ for nigh-on a decade for goodness' sake. That was really kind of dumb of her. Or at the very least woefully lacking in imagination.

So, fine, now it's _her_ staring and when he chuckles she just closes the distance again and runs her fingers through his thatch of straight, ruffley chest hair, and that... _is_ all kind of strange and new. And interesting. Also, she's beginning to realize that she'd gone and formed a subconscious notion of Tim being a bit hollowed-out and undernourished all over. Although really, whatever approximation she'd been able to make of his erection should have already clued her in that that wasn't the case. Nothing outlandishly big, but certainly nothing _undernourished_.

Rachel nearly groans, and drags her fingertips through the silky crinkle of his hair, down that lovely little promising trail leading right into his pants, she feels almost feverish with the heat blossoming in every erogenous zone she has. He's making all these pleasing sounds and it _has_ been too long, it has been _too long_ , and he has a penis and she is welcome to it, come on, _come on_.

She's so focused on getting his pants off she doesn't even think about his side arm holstered on his hip or his badge on his belt, the weight dragging askew as soon as she gets his belt and fly open, startling a laughing huff out of him. They both break off in order to take care of their own, and she follows Tim to the couch, piling their things on the coffee table and sitting to get their shoes off. Her boots are handily zippered and she has them and her socks off in seconds, and it's so...bizarrely mundane to watch him yanking at the laces of his boots that she starts giggling and can't stop.

"Do something--" a cranky huff this time, shoving with one foot at the heel of the other, and boot, sock, one of them's done, "-- _useful_ and get your damn bra off."

Which only makes her giggle harder, and she never knew just how fast a remaining boot can get unlaced until she feels all that lean muscle tackle her back down into the seat cushions, and now she's shrieking and giggling both, warm skin pressing over hers, the weight of him, making her body quicken and her thoughts go deliciously slow. He's shaking his head, worming an arm under her back, the sound of his voice through his grin in her ear as he complains, "Gotta do _everything_ myself..."

"Aw, sugar," she murmurs in _his_ ear, feeling the shiver go right through him on top of her. Feeling the heady rush of power go through _her_ , arching up to help his access, rubbing her breasts indulgently against his chest. "C'mon, you can do it, show me that Ranger know-how..."

Tim makes just this amazing little _growling_ noise and before she knows it her bra is loose, her bra is _gone_ , he's got her lying right down against the back of the couch and he's lying along next to her, her pants and underwear half down her hips and his hand slipping _right_ \--

Rachel jolts like she's taken an electric shock when his fingers cup her bare, knocking the giggle right out of her and replacing it with a drowning gasp, it's so desperate. He pauses less than a second before the demand of her hips has him massaging firmer, she's digging what are probably going to be bruises in the meat of his shoulders, and he doesn't stop. He's just sliding long fingers right in, in and in, this beautiful gliding stretch, she's _whimpering_ \--

"Good?" he's whispering in her ear, drawing out slow and going in faster when she nods frantically.

"Yes--God-- _Tim_ \--"

If he showed even the slightest hint of gloating at her stark pleading of his name, Rachel doesn't know what she'd do. Hating him forever would be a good start, though probably she'd still need to use him to get off first. But he doesn't. Instead, he gives the most gratifying stifled little moan and speeds up, and it's so good, and she needs _so much more_.

"Tim. _Tim_."

It takes him a second to focus. "Yeah."

" _Get my pants off_."

Somewhere in her hip-writhing need, Rachel's half expecting another snark from him about having to do everything, but he doesn't say a word. Just bends down the line of her, pulling at the ready lift of her lower body, helping her kick out of every last stitch of clothing she has on.

Thank God she got his fly mostly undone earlier, because she doesn't know how much she could concentrate on anything but getting her hand inside his briefs and closing it around the silken heat of him, so wonderfully hard and sweetly thick, curving just a little--

" _Jesus_ ," he gasps, "fucking _ambush_ ," and the profane, coarsely obscene words with her hand pumping gently along him send a thrill through her she'd never have imagined. "I-- _fuck_!"

He's fallen back beside her and her pants are still coiled somewhere around her shins, but that's not nearly as important as swirling her thumb through the precome beading at his deep red tip again, watching Tim shudder and clench his jaw hard.

"I'm told that's the idea." She intended that to come out more smug than breathless, but that's a lost cause. "...Where the hell is that condom?"

He slaps his hand out wildly behind himself onto the coffee table and manages to get it on the first go, which would be impressive except for how it had to be total luck. She kicks and shoves at her pants and the cling of her underwear without any elegance whatsoever while he gets the condom on, and...well. He has certainly had a _lot_ of practice with that. So--fine. Of course. Good for him. Clearly, her competitive streak can just go into absurd overdrive sometimes. He's pushing at his own pants, but frankly, she has gone long enough and isn't waiting through another round of one of them doing leg-flapping nonsense when everything they need is already where they need it.

Tim's eyes go wide and find her, and his hands do the same, when she just up and slings her leg across both of his. She jabs her knee forcefully at his half-clothed flank until he gets the message and centers his ass on the couch underneath her.

He's got both hands on her hips now, lying there helping her steady on him. That line between his eyebrows that never truly disappears has furrowed deeper, and for some reason it's making her settle her weight with a little more kindness onto his thighs. And then, when his eyes flicker and catch on the inside of her right hip, his thumb lifting out of the way before he looks up again at her face, she finds she can't help grinning at him a bit.

He grins back with pure plain delight, this discovery of her, and Rachel might, kind of, melt a just little bit more. Because then he's looking back down and stroking his thumb over the sleek colors of her hummingbird tattoo--hovering delicate and pretty and just a smidge too close over her mons to be quite innocent--with such aroused tenderness that she needs to catch her breath. And fight every instinct to just lean down and kiss him senseless.

That's not what they're doing here. She needs to remember that. This is casual sex. Friends helping friends. She is here for Tim's penis.

Tim's penis.

Okay.

She's caught her lip by her teeth and his erection with her hand, condom-clad and... _Tim's_.

"Hey."

She looks up at that, her eyes finding his, her lip still between her teeth, and she swears she feels the length of him jump a little in her hold. But he doesn't say anything more, it's just his hands helping urge her up, over him, his eyes still holding hers and maybe there's a _little_ bit of a lifeline about it. What are friends for.

Her eyes close briefly when she feels the head of him, real as real at her entrance, and then she opens her eyes again and locks on his with a purpose and Tim is nodding. Eyes warm, those crinkles at the edges, that sweet soft quirk to his lips waiting for her to take what she needs.

Rachel braces her hands on his chest and pushes herself down.

She loses sight of his eyes immediately, loses sight of _everything_ immediately, but she feels his fingers jerk on her and he breathes, "Oh, _fuck_ ," without even seeming to realize he's doing either. She can only gasp her agreement, can't even locate the _idea_ of words around the stretch of sinking down on him, a twinge of pain from going too fast that only makes her go faster to claim its promise.

She thinks he groans, maybe, but to be honest she's lost track of anything to do with him at all other than the way he's filling her hot and thick. She rocks her hips down to feel it even more fully, rolling and pushing, nothing but this physical thing of taking what she needs and oh God she _needs_.

She moves, _is moving_ , no thought at all and the utter _relief_ of that. Just hitting everything that feels good, over and over and better every time. She brings more of her weight onto it, careful just until she's got it where she can slide it harder, faster, letting every impact take her over completely, she can get more leverage by pushing against the muscular chest under her fingers and she's arching, arching, arching to get it. Head back, the exclamations of her voice a distant, sweeter counterpoint joining the background male sounds in her ears, rough words or grunts, she doesn't know or care except for the way they urge it all higher, _more_.

She's not rushing it but it's not going to take long, this rhythm building and building within the core of her, getting her where she needs to be. She can feel it coming, gathering inside, the good hard tense and pull of every part of her body working her towards it, centered deep on the length moving inside her, hips meeting her, driving harder than she could on her own pressing her apart almost brutally, almost perfectly, _almost_ \--

With a hoarse gasp she shoves her hand down, groping for her clitoris and it's a second and an eternity before she can find it. The first direct touch she gets bangs through her like firing pin to cap, instant and incandescent, tearing her apart in release.

She hears her own pained sobbing outcry, feels herself--at some point--collapse forward onto his chest, and they're still moving and it's going on, and on, and she needs something, anything, to anchor her in pleasure too wild to contain, and there are little dots right there on his neck so close to her mouth.

He tastes sweat-salty and skin-sweet, smooth warmth to jagged shout, jolting up into her, and in the middle of all the sensation is some faint awareness that he must have been holding back until just now, shuddering deep, the clamp of his arm around her waist, the strength of his surge up into her. Out and out through her like a shock wave and she only registers that it's got her sucking on him, mindlessly hard, when he begins to subside and she does too, moving her lips over the spot in an instinctive soothe.

Gradually other traces of awareness begin seeping in, too. Her own deep panting, air moving in and out of her lungs, cool to be heated inside her throbbing body, exhaled against the wet of her saliva on Tim's neck. The harsh work of _his_ lungs, underneath her, their joined movement slowing, slowing into just this, stillness within the gentle sway of their living breath.

"Jesus," she hears, whispering out soft from his throat and rippling through her in reverence, " _Rachel_."

She can't move. She can't move a muscle, except the tiny, tiny effort to tuck her face a little more into his neck. She's just lying full weight on top of him. He's still inside her. Just breathing. She cannot move a _muscle_.

She feels the slight twitch of Tim's hands where they're folded over her lower back, and she almost wants to cry, to tell him _no_ , not yet, don't make her move yet. She knows she can't lie here forever, but she really, she _can't_ move. Just a little longer. Please. Just a little longer.

The twitch of his touch smooths out into a small, idle movement tracing over a curve, releasing her from tension that her limp body couldn't even manage to hold. Even a small sob of relief would be too much, so she sighs instead, and feels the stroking continue. Aimless, nowhere to be and nothing to do, and it's so beautiful that for a minute or two she's actually drifting on the edges of sleep. She sighs again into his neck, the fresh oxygen nudging her mind back towards awake and she might not be able to move just yet, but she most _definitely_ cannot go to sleep.

The thought becomes a puff of amusment, nuzzling because he feels so good, because _she_ feels so good. He rumbles a little under her, arms shifting firmer around her, a sigh that's not hers.

"That went well," he murmurs after a minute, his customary dryness getting all tangled up with contentment, and it makes her want to snicker. It comes out a kind of hissing quiver against him, but it seems to translate, because his arm lifts higher up under her shoulders and he gives a little nuzzle in return, his cheek creasing happily against hers.

"I don't ever want to move again," she mumbles, and feels him rumble again and she's pretty sure it's agreement. She's drifting, drifting again, losing any sense of time passing, so it might have been seconds or it might have been hours before anything even vaguely coherent wanders across her mind. Though she has a feeling it wasn't _actually_ hours.

"What did you try putting on the walls?"

Tim takes a few seconds to drift her way, but doesn't seem confused by her languid curiosity. "Uhhm. Poster from a gig. I dunno, it was free, I figured what the hell." His head beside hers tilts slightly, glancing around she thinks, she can't even contemplate lifting _her_ head yet. "Lasted two hours before I couldn't take it anymore. It was just too sad."

Her body is able to sustain more of a snicker this time, sharing the goodnatured disgust in his tone, and it's enough to parlay into a mild stretch, feeling every fiber of her body still awash in post-orgasm laziness. She hums. On the third, maybe fourth go, she manages to get her head up just enough, and his face turns, only an inch away. They look at each other for only a few seconds, soft with laughter too satisfied to express itself, before her eyes are closing themselves all over again. She slumps back down, a groan for reality beginning to rally around them. She still doesn't want to move.

"Hey, you hungry?"

His question is just as unhurried as his fingers, still tracing aimless patterns on her back, beginning to raise goosebumps in the airconditioned cool. The question travels through her head raising traces of actual thought in its wake--such as, he cannot be all that comfortable. She has to be squashing him. He has to be hot and sweaty under her. He's soft and still inside her and she doesn't know if that can be comfortable either, and meanwhile they're carrying on a conversation virtually indistinguishable from any time they're kicking back in the surveillance van.

Maybe this is the casual part of the sex, Rachel thinks, and it's not a very good joke but whatever, she feels _great_. She does a slightly better job of lifting her head this time, and props herself with an arm for good measure. And realizes she _is_ hungry. Working late to drinking to sex. She hasn't really eaten since lunch. "Yeah."

"Pizza or Chinese?" His eyes are straying over her face, one hand coming up to brush back wisps of hair that will have wormed free of her low bun and are probably waving out like dandelion frizz. She can't seem to mind it, and also the idea of greasy, cheesy pizza suddenly sounds amazing.

"Pizza. And I can't believe we're having this conversation while you're still inside me."

The flush of exertion has been receeding from his face, but now it pinks again slightly. It's a recent discovery, but turns out she likes making Tim blush. "You're the one who said she didn't want to move."

Embarrassment stabs, needle-small and a bit too overwhelming. "Oh--"

Tim's arms are right around her before she can even begin to squirm away. " _Hey_ no no no no." He pulls her fully back down to him, holding her right where she is until she relaxes again. "Not going anywhere, don't even think about it."

"Well, now it's awkward," she mutters against his neck, trying not to just melt right back into his arms.

"Yeah. But nice."

Rachel grumbles some more, but she can't quite get her heart in it, and there might be just a little bit of a snuggle that happens before she can find something else to snark at. "I should have known it'd only be takeout options with you."

"Yeah sorry. I don't do the all-cooking, all-singing, all-dancing floor show. Just the penis."

She's laughing, and raises her head again. "What?"

Tim's forehead crinkles right up, and she's struck by a sudden impulse. And gets to watch his eyes soften, just a little, as she runs a thumb across the sweep of one of his eyebrows. She wonders if these affectionate touches are strictly supposed to happen in casual sex. Or between friends. The lines are very hard to locate, she thinks amusedly. Unlike--surprisingly--his eyebrows.

Her lips are pulling up at her own crappy jokes and he glances at them, and answers, "Mr 'Good Life Triple-Threat' Brooks."

Mr Good Life Triple-Threat Brooks. _Joe_. "Uh..."

Tim is now looking slightly spooked. "What?"

"I..." Rachel stares down at him. "I didn't even _think_ about him until just now."

She feels the hint of tension drain back out of his body she is so very intimately pressed to. The stroke of his hand resumes over her back even as his smirk goes insufferably delightful. "Can't say I'm too broken up about that."

She rolls her eyes and tries not to think about kissing that smirk. There are lines and there are _lines_. Kissing...is Joe, though she's not going to try fooling herself it was the lack of kissing that made her not think about him, not once. God. Joe...This is all such a mess. And yet, even with this position they're lying in beginning to twinge in her muscles, and the conviction that it really must be at least a little uncomfortable for Tim, and the strange feeling of her vagina still stretched around the amiable intrusion of his penis, it all still feels better than she can remember in...too long a time. Sort of like back when Joe had gotten into giving massages, only a hundred times better--

She sits up with a jerk, and Tim grunts sharply. "Massage! Oh my God. That's what I can do. There have to be massage places in Lexington. That aren't sleazy. I mean it's not sex, but..."

"I'm very happy for you, please get off my dick."

The wince bordering on desperate takes any possible sting out of his words, and it's a fumbling few seconds, with him making a grimaced grab for the base of the condom on him before she even thinks about that. And then she's half standing between the floor and the couch, full naked, and still a bit wobbly. She looks down and is reminded she didn't even let him get his pants very far off, before looking around to locate the pieces of her own ensemble scattered all over.

Rachel is not embarrassed by sex, and she is not embarrassed by her body, however there are times and places for both. And yet--the thought of putting _those_ clothes back on right now is just unbearable. She makes a note of this definite downside to casual sex. She wonders if she should ask Tim if she can use his shower, and that feels...too intimate and weird, which couldn't be more ridiculous considering what they've just done, and yet.

He's got his pants up, if not fastened, swoops and he's standing there already halfway done, holding his shirt next to her.

Standing there and holding his shirt _out_ to her.

Rachel straightens, and learns that he really towers over her when the highest one-inch heels she can find that are still practical to run around in aren't in play. Tim looks at her expression.

"It's a cliche for a reason, Rach. 'Cause it's _comfortable_. You can borrow my penis but you can't borrow my shirt?"

He has a point, and she blushes, knows he sees it, and only blushes harder. She could have just gotten herself a damn _massage_. "Sorry about that."

"Oh my God. Rachel." He drops the shirt on the couch they just had sex on, takes her naked shoulders and turns her naked body towards him. He waits until she looks up at his face. "It was _my pleasure_. I'd tell you 'any time,' only I wouldn't want you takin' it the wrong way now you've gone and got this massage-substituting-sex notion into your head. Which, for the record, I thought we were doing this so you could get your head on _straight_ , so if it hasn't worked, and we have to go again--"

"Give me that." She swipes his shirt off the couch, and bends and fishes her underwear out of its tangle with her slacks, and by the time she stands up again she has both the desire to laugh, and the sudden, wilder one to take him up on it, mostly under control. "That your bathroom?" she then makes herself ask, nodding at the only other door she can see besides his bedroom. She doesn't want to discover she's making a dignified exit into a surprise linen closet in this little barren apartment.

"Yes, and towels and shit are under the sink."

She looks at him, being all blandly polite at her, and bites her lip. He has a point.

Rachel steps closer, not sure why she's putting her hand on his chest but it brings the gentle warmth she didn't even realize she wanted back, so it works out okay. She wishes she knew the damn rules for all this. "Sorry," she says softly, and can't think of anything else to say, and stepping in to embrace him--or more--is kind of the rules _she_ set, so that's out.

He smiles his twisty little smile, and moves his hand, and for a second she wants it to be him reaching up and touching her back--but he's only pulling his phone out of his pocket. She bites back another laugh, and hopes that it wasn't digging into him at any point, because _she_ sure as hell didn't notice it. "Supreme?" he asks, already dialing.

It's their usual pizza order, and she only nods and leaves him to it.

A shower's still too much to contemplate, but she can get herself comfortable enough with a washcloth. And then she's pulling his shirt on quickly in a bid not to notice quite so much how it smells like--like _Tim_ , and how that's a category of subtle scent her nose already recognizes, and how her hindbrain has already connected that scent to skin and sweat and...and she concentrates on trying to keep the overeager hair around her head from running too free.


	3. Chapter 3

Rachel is placing the pizza on the coffee table when Tim comes out of his turn in the bathroom, and he runs his eyes over but makes absolutely no comment about the way his henley only just comes to the tops of her thighs, clinging fast like it's desperate to preserve her long-fled modesty. Pizza delivery isn't a profession on par with law enforcement for having seen just about everything, but it's not far behind either. He just fetches them plates, and admits he doesn't have anything other than beer, but she can handle eating pizza with a glass of water and the occasional stolen sip from his bottle for the variety. As far as ad hoc meals she's made do with go, it'll do the job just fine.

They end up on the floor between the coffee table and the couch, some unspoken agreement not to sit back up on there, him in just his cargo pants and her in just his shirt, dragged under her butt to give her underwear what cover it can get. It's unreasonably comfortable with him like this, lounging sideways against the solidness of the couch's seat, just chatting and talking shop, and all that is ruined in an instant when she sees him lick something off his thumb, and then chase it with a swallow of his beer.

His throat works it down, and then she realizes there's a disinctly pink mark on the side of his neck.

He reaches for his second piece of pizza, and now that she's not ravenously focused on her own, and he's no longer flushed and sweaty, she notices the distinctly _red_ -tinged marks on his chest. And she is pretty damn sure Tim didn't put them there himself.

Her mind flicks up a quick and dirty slideshow for her, and he looks up at the little noise she makes. "You okay?"

"Yeah--yes. Here. Have some water, rehydrate." Rachel passes him her glass, and he just holds it, looking at her. She holds her best bluffing face and tries to pretend it was a sensible thing to say to a grown man.

Unfortunately, in many of the ways that matter, Tim _is_ a grown man. His eyes narrow. "Okay. But only because I'm pretending how _you're_ not trying to coddle _me_ 'cause you got the wiggins about having just banged my brains out."

He drains the glass and sets it down on the coffee table with a bit of a thump. And doesn't take his eyes off her.

"More like how you're going to have to explain that hickey I gave you at the office tomorrow," she snaps.

He smirks with a hard mouth. "Not a problem."

She snatches his half-full beer and thumps it next to the empty glass. " _And_ you drink too much."

_And_ that was definitely a line just there. She knows it the moment she says it, well before Tim is saying " _Rachel_ \--"

"Wait." She puts her hand up in the most apologetic manner she can manage. "Wait. I'm...not handling this well. You're right. That was over the line. I--that was really good. I mean _really_ good. And I don't want to ruin it, but I don't know how...I'm just still trying to...catch up with it, I guess. And, it's not just your neck."

He follows her look down at his chest, and chuckles, with not all that much humor really. "Yeah. Okay," he says, and it's...not agreement, not anything, hollow like the chuckle.

"No. Tim. I don't know how to say 'thanks for looking after me'--" She hears her own words and takes a shaky breath, unable to hide it. "--I guess...I mean I was going to say, I don't know how to say it without making it weird like I'm thanking you, you know, for the sex. Which is not what I meant. But...I'm not all that good at...the whole thing. Letting someone look after me. Just. In general."

He's just watching her now, and Rachel starts working on her own second slice, keeping her mouth busy until it stops wanting to babble all kinds of even more probably inappropriate things. Like how much she appreciates his efforts and not just those of his penis, it's hardly about his penis even at all, and he's been a real friend, and she just cannot make any of those sentiments come out not totally awful. _Screw_ this casual sex thing.

Especially since, now, every time she looks at him he's sitting there with her marks coming up so lividly over his chest and neck, the way they've warmed up the harsh lines of his tattoo. She needs to be more mortified by that and less...intrigued.

She's beginning to think that one round, spectacular as it was, wasn't enough to deal with all the buildup of stress she's got stored away. But that's okay, because it was enough to find a solution to that, and to tide her over until she can implement it. It's manageable.

She doesn't look up, but it's the truth when she says, "It really did help, Tim. _All_ of it."

He doesn't say anything, and Rachel just keeps working away at her pizza. After a minute he gets up and snags her empty glass, going into the kitchen.

When he comes back, he puts down two full glasses and stretches back out silently beside her.

She picks at her food and he keeps going with his, for all the world just as comfortable as before. She doesn't think he is. And she's certain he knows she's watching him. His efficient movements, his deft hands. The flicker of his other tattoo catching at her eye, that quiet tidy stamp on the inside of his right wrist, containing every bit as much violence as the one over his heart.

She shivers, slightly. Though it's not for him--she walks amid violence and reports of violence every day, and Tim earned her trust long ago.

_One shot--one kill_ encircling a rifle, neat as a loaded cartridge rim.

Rachel had pulled twice. Twice, virtually without thinking, just the risk-assessment and reaction. Two rounds center mass to the perpetrator brandishing his weapon with intent to fire. It was entirely the right thing to do, and if she hadn't, someone else most likely would be wounded or killed. If she hadn't, Raylan or Tim _would_ have.

The thought of leaving it, of checking her action to fire--letting it fall on one of their capable trigger fingers instead--makes her want to throw up her pizza.

She sets her plate aside, queasy. She looks at her hands, lying in her lap where her bare legs have drawn up, not exactly a fetal curl, but...

"I went to the range, today," she says, quietly, mostly down at her hands. She feels Tim's stillness, listening. "Spent almost half an hour." She kneads a thumb along her palm, the agitation fizzing quietly within her fingers. It's not even a choice when she looks up to find his steel-blue eyes so she can make her confession. "I couldn't pull."

"Okay," he says, and it's so calm. He just studies her. "First time down there since you shot your guy?"

She stops, has to stop, those words needing no more permission than her bullets had to pierce deep, raw and final. Not "the shooting," not "the events." Not "the perpetrator." Not "Ralph Beeman, AKA 'Flex,' see photograph attached." _Your guy_.

Since she shot her guy.

She supposes there really aren't many stronger claims to someone than taking away their life. The ownership of the act settles inside, along with the knowledge it's how it should be that she's gonna tread just a little heavier for the rest of her life.

"Yes," she says, and she doesn't think she's imagining it to hear the weight of it in her voice, too.

Tim nods, terminally unruffled. "Want me to come with you next time?"

Rachel knows, even as she stiffens, that it's a stupid reflex. But too much at once is too much at once, and this chestnut's old and well-worn for a reason. "I don't need your help, I can do it mys--"

Tim's head snaps up, nothing unruffled in the way he drops his plate flat on the floor, eyes blazing. "No. _Fuck that_. I will hold your ha--I will stand behind you and hold your fucking _trigger finger_ , I will hold any fucking part of you I _want_ , you are going to be able to pull your fucking trigger when you need to. Do you understand me?"

There is, shamefully, an almost boundless sense of relief in the gritted resolve of his statement, and she's already free-falling into it by the time she throws out one last token of resistance. "And I suppose you'd stand behind Raylan and pull the trigger for him, too--"

He's mowing straight on over her bravado bullshit. "The day I have to do that for Raylan, he's already dead. You are _not_ getting shot and killed because some shitweasel pulls on you and you glitch on firing your weapon. Rachel. I said _do you understand me_."

"Yes," she whispers, gripping herself in place on his carpet with both hands because diving across and kissing him deeply on the mouth is _not_ an option.

It takes him a second, but then he's nodding, slackening off the utter single-minded force of his focus on her, and maybe _that_ was what he looks like behind his rifle. He picks up his plate again, lifting a desultory piece of topping and eating it without enthusiasm, turning from her and leaning his back flat against the couch, legs slouched out in front of him under the coffee table. "Okay. Good. In that case you can hate me for it as much as you want."

Rachel feels the laugh simmering, simmering, warming right through her, right inside there with the accountability and the unanswerable reality of death. She's no less heavy, but she's more strong. "You're a good friend, Tim Gutterson."

Tim doesn't look up, but she sees his mouth twitch in profile. After a moment, he says, "I got your back, Rachel Brooks."

The strength of feeling under his quiet words makes her throat want to close up, so instead she says, as lightly as she can, "I know you do. Hey, would you stand there behind, say, Nelson...?"

Who has never fired his weapon in the line of duty. Tim's mouth twitches up more, glimmering in his eyes as he looks over at her, resigned. "Yeah...If I had to."

It's the truth, and it makes her laugh, stretching her legs out straight like him, arching her shoulders back flush to the lip of the couch seat, cricks coming out. She closes her eyes. And then realizes.

"Okay, now what," he says at the sound of her groan.

"It's late," she complains.

"...True...?"

It's fine for _Tim_ not to comprehend. He's _home_. He doesn't have to put clothes back on, and call a cab, and get all the way to his own bed before he can indulge in sexed-out, desperately needed sleep. She groans again, and knows the sooner she gets going, the sooner she will...be going.

Lord, this casual sex blows.

It feels easier to open her mouth than her eyes, at the moment. "Can you call a cab, while I...ugh." It also feels easier to just groan once more than finish all the words of that sentence. Not to mention _do_ them.

She hears him shift. "Yes...Unless."

Rachel gets a strange sense of deja vu as she cracks one eye at him.

"You can stay, if you want. The bed's big enough...or, I'll sleep on the couch, if you'd--"

She sits straighter and looks at him. Thinks about lying there, next to the long frame of him. In his bed. Thinks about not going home, sleeping next to him, there in his bed. There's a certain rootless domesticity to their job, setting up camp anywhere and everywhere, and it wouldn't be the first time either of them have slept in the other's presence, although never before at the same time. Never before together in the one bed. Let alone in one of their _own_ beds.

"Don't be ridiculous," she says, slowly, and Tim nods hastily and is reaching for his phone on the table, when she continues, "...you don't have to sleep on the couch."

There's no question, this time, in his glance or otherwise, to see if she's sure. He just nods again, and stands, beginning to collect the remains of their dinner. She finishes her last piece, and hands the plate to him, doing her best with her napkin to get the grease off her fingers before rummaging for her own phone. She shoots a text to her ma, who's used to the job keeping her out nights, and then sets her alarm and orders a cab for the morning. She collects her clothes, taking her time to leave them in the least crumpled state she can manage, until Tim's out of the bathroom. She selects the green toothbrush out of the 3-for-1 packet he left with his toothpaste beside the sink, thoughtfully leaving him the last pink one in the molded plastic wrapping, and generally gets herself ready for bed. By the time she's turning off the light, and following the low lamplight through the darkened living room into his bedroom, she's almost on autopilot.

He waits until she gets in on the free side of him--left side, farthest from his bedroom door. She always slept on the right, with Joe--she settles herself under the covers, and Tim flicks off the light.

She is not on autopilot at _all_.

By the fourth, or maybe the fifth, or maybe sixth, time she turns and tosses over, she can _feel_ him, over there, behind her. Feel him looking at her, in the wash of ambient light from his window on her side of the room.

She makes herself lie still for a minute. She's too warm, in the sturdy material and long sleeves of his shirt, and she pushes the covers down, feels the kiss of cool air along her skin. The shirt's ridden up to her waist, the narrow line of her plain underwear hugging high, the bare curve of her hip to the top of her thigh and into the bunching drape of the sheets. If she turns over again...she's going to see Tim. Watching her, as the hospitality he offered disrupts any possibility of him getting to sleep.

She lies still, and it has to be for minutes, passing and passing, and her own bed back home is beginning to feel less distant than her own sleep. She hopes Tim is having more luck than she is. Maybe he's not looking at her anymore.

Maybe she is on autopilot, after all, because that idea has her looking back over her shoulder to check without a single further thought going into it.

His dark irises are black in the dim blue-tinged light. He's lying there quietly on his back, bare chest rising out of the unrumpled fold of his side of the bedding. His head is pillowed on his left arm, and turned looking straight at her.

Rachel knows exactly what will happen if she decides to turn over all the way. And she knows exactly what won't happen if she decides to turn her face back, to her side.

Rachel doesn't move. Looking back at Tim, lying away from him, caught between decisions because they're not decisions at all. Because she already made it, the moment she told him he didn't have to sleep on the couch.

The first slow brush of his fingers on her hip as she lies there looking at him isn't really questioning, either, but it is...waiting. Not quite patient, but watching, that stillness in him, even as they slide down to the boundary of the sheets and back up. It's like it gives her eyes permission to close, and they do, any pretense dropping away.

Her face turns with an audible sigh to nestle back into her pillow as she feels him roll fully up onto his side behind her.

It's strange, now that she's consciously recalling the fact of Joe's existence, to feel how her outside arm on the bed is her left arm, her weaker arm, and there's probably something tremendously insightful about that in her habitual side of her marriage bed. But for right now, it means it's Tim's right--dexterous--hand, his gun hand, strength and unerring precision, that has the freedom and reach of her body, lying like this. And has continued just stroking tingling laps of her skin between the leg hem of her underwear and the sheets.

She shifts higher, sheet slipping down mid-thigh and her back only an inch away from his front. Enough for the warm proximity to pull at the tingles his fingers are stirring, shimmering up the base of her ass, her pelvis, her spine. She sighs again, feels his fingers go down all the way to the new tideline of the sheet, drifting forward on their way back up until they meet the crease of her thigh, just where it begins to curve inward to her sex. He teases at the elastic of her underwear before curling under, blunt nails navigating by it...back over her hip and to the meat of her ass before slipping out again, and it is at this point Rachel decides this feels incredible and she might just combust if he doesn't get a move on.

She communicates this determination directly by pressing her ass back, entirely gratified to come into contact with the hard, hot ridge inside his briefs that makes his breath come out more like a groan. In a flash Tim's right arm is around her and hauling her back--unerringly--against the length of his body and the not especially subtle grind of his hips. She grinds right back, making him groan a little louder, so close in her ear it sends a shudder right down her.

And then...he slows down again. Not as bad as before, his hand fondling quite interestingly down the front of her-- _his_ \--shirt, before slipping under the hem...but only to play around her belly button. When she squirms, and feels his thick chuckle into the contingency sleep-braid she's made of her hair, she knows he has a perfectly good idea of how impatient she is.

She squirms back harder, and he keeps his hips just enough out of range to feel like she's getting nowhere. But at least he slides his hand higher, lazy elliptical trails...that keep falling just short of her breasts.

No wriggling seems to be enough to get him to go higher, and it has ceased to be a mystery _at all_ to her why this is a position she had rarely taken with Joe. With her shoulderblades pressed into Tim's chest, and her hips largely checked by one of his long legs, and his right arm slung like a friendly iron band over her side, then, unless Rachel wants to put up an actual fight, he has her all but pinned to the bed and at the mercy of whatever his caresses want to do.

Disturbingly, Rachel is in less of a mood to put up any actual fight than she would ever, ever care to admit.

She twists fast as an eel, getting her right arm in under his and back down behind her, to see if she can't locate something to hurry things along here--but he really _is_ quick. Her arm is already expelled from between their bodies and the bar of his arm only locks tighter to her side, keeping her out, and she's back to square one.

His fingers brush up to the firm skin of her sternum, and--back down again.

The sheets are half off them both now, and it's no trick at all to insinuate her hand under and find the outside of Tim's thigh. She digs her nails in with a certain amount of emphasis.

He hums in her ear, appreciative and too amused, and then he's biting. Very, very gently...and holding her totally immobile, because he's captured the hook of her earring that autopilot evidently forgot to take out, right between his teeth on her soft lobe.

Rachel has no trouble whatsoever understanding why she goes absolutely still, at this. What she does _not_ understand is why her breath sucks with a deep, long, shivering hiss, nor why, when he holds her there, just like that, and slowly brings his hand up to engulf her breast, she _sobs_ like something in her is breaking apart. Or why she doesn't move an inch, biting her lip so hard it hurts, as his thumb eases over her aching nipple, back and forth, in between the gentle warm kneading of those long damned fingers on her breast.

When his index and thumb close on her nipple, pinching in the same moment that his tongue laves wetly at her captive earlobe inside his mouth, she just might have broken skin on his thigh in order to lie still within that iron circle of his arm that's not letting her go anywhere.

A single word would be enough to get Tim to release her. Or, she suspects, give her everything she wants. The not-quite pressure between his groin and her backside has practically become a furnace with the heat he's bringing to it. And yet she utters nothing except the high, undignified panting she can't contain as he suckles on her ear, the occasional delicate scrape of metal against tooth enamel, throbbing along every nerve in her body with the weight of his hand moving on her breasts, fingers plucking and rolling gently at her nipples.

Her hips have begun rocking, rocking, back against him, to the luxurious simmering torture of his erratic tempo on her...and he's pressing into it. She deepens the movement, carefully into him, until she's made a cradle for herself in his hips--and caught his erection blatantly between the cheeks of her ass. Until she can work him as sweet and deep and demanding as she can manage with her upper torso held still, and if her own chuckle comes breathless when he groans upon her ear, she doesn't think it matters.

Which is when Rachel adds a wicked little twist to the motion of her hips on him, and is both sorry and elated at how it makes him break away from her ear with a sharp gasp. And then she realizes the window of opportunity this gives her, which she's not sure she even wants anymore but it's the principle of the thing.

She's able to slip her arm down underneath his again and get her hand around him, if not inside his underwear, for almost a second before he's countering and breaking her hold, and she's countering back, a diving tangling exchange of one-armed grapples that deserve the name about as much as two kids in a slapfight. If it were any kind of fair sparring match she has no doubt she'd be holding her own just fine--or respectably fine, at any rate--but with Tim's longer reach and positional advantage like this, there's no way he isn't going very easy on her.

A point which is underscored when she realizes the covers have fallen off far enough that she can get a decent smack to his ass, and promptly does so. _Her_ reach is too short to get a real solid handful, but it's enough to be satisfying and it'll have to tide her over, because she immediately finds her wrist caught and then transferred into the implacable grip of his other hand. His left arm has snaked easily under her neck to hold her right hand trapped down in front of her on the bed. Which she considers is cheating. Her own left arm she's lying on may still be free but its range of motion is next to useless...which means it's time for some cheating of her own.

She settles herself back, slow, full against his body, circling a brazen sway with her hips, neck cradled on his cheating left arm. She looks up into Tim's face an inch or two away, and she pouts.

There may not be a lot of nighttime Lexington light filtering in through the window, but there's definitely enough. She watches his eyes roving over her face, the grin that splits his wide, that rare, unalloyed delight he's already shown her so many times this evening. He's bending his head down to her with a low laughing grumble, and it takes her a few yearning, muzzy seconds to work out why he shouldn't kiss her, and by then his lips are landing safely on the crook of her neck. Soft and more nuzzling than kissing--so, she supposes, and goodness knows what on _earth_ she supposes right now, that might be covered in the rule too--and then his right hand is back on her stomach again, pressing flat. Holding still. She about _bucks_ back into him, just so he's aware of her opinion on that.

Tim's lips have traveled up her neck and found the skin behind her ear, nibbling there. "Tell me something, Rachel..." he murmurs, in his warm and wry lilt, and she feels like she's going into overload trying to process the reminder of the existence of _words_ and the sensation of his hand slipping down into the waist of her underwear at the same time, the whole rest of him hedging her sternly in place. The scent of him, from his shirt and from his body, wrapping intimately around her. Her breath hitching, higher and higher, until _finally_ his fingers reach her, curling sweetly down, all the way between her legs. "...Are you always this much trouble?"

She's canting her hips, her thighs spreading shamelessly, hooking her right calf back over his knee, the sheets still draping annoyingly around her and his hand refusing to go anywhere she really needs it to be. Just evenly applying a tantalizing rocking pressure that is suspiciously familiar.

Oh, God. Yes. Yes, she _is_ , she will fucking _show him_ trouble.

She kicks the last of the bedding away with a vengeance. "Tell me something, Tim," she spits out, just as soon as she can line the words up, he will stand behind her, he will hold any part of her he wants and he will _make her fire_ , "you always have this much fucking trouble finding the trigger?"

She's got him locked up in a laughing cough for just long enough--and oh, look there, the reach she can get with her left arm is good for something after all. She finds his forearm, caressing down him until she's got ahold of his hand. She glides her toes comfortingly up and down his calf and says, in the most coddling of tones for the most clueless of new recruits, "You need me to show you how it works, sweetheart?"

There is a pause of all of a second before she's crushed deliciously back against him, her right arm trapped to her breasts within the inflexible clamp of his left over her, feeling every hard--very hard--line of his body, every harsh intake of his breath against her.

"Fuck, yes, Rachel," he grates, and she shivers uncontrollably, and God all she could wish for in the world is to be naked in his arms right now, his skin against her like this. He flexes where he's got her in the palm of his hand, the supple play of his muscles and bones and tendons under hers. "Show me how it works, _sweetheart_."

Rachel's hand tightens with a jerk, to go along with the bounce of air in her throat, but then she's smoothing her grip out, on the back of Tim's unfamiliar hand...curving to the familiar shape of her body. Completely motionless. Waiting--for her to take control.

Oh, this...okay. She's seeing the virtue of patience, now, as she pets him, gets a _feel_ for him. All the way back up to his wrist, hooked forward around her waist, and as she bracelets him loosely with her fingers it occurs to her that his ink is kissed there to hers, a whole extra hidden caress taken hot and private within her hips. She undulates, soft as the groan on her breath, pressing and sensual for it even while he holds himself perfectly still, parade-ground disciplined, awaiting orders. She smiles for a moment before continuing, down nice and slow into her underwear, stroking the agile contours of him just for their own sake, the ridge of his knuckles, the grooves of his fingers, rubbing him gently until she feels the faintest tremble go through every single muscle of his body.

She hums, approving, and experiments with a little pressure. He is _wonderfully_ responsive, obeying every touch and gentle squeeze until it's almost like she's touching herself. He must have been an excellent student for his instructors, she thinks, nearly giggling with it, and cranes her head a little to where she can rub her cheek against his, proud of him. "That's the way, sugar," she whispers, and she opens up her thighs and presses the tips of his fingers deeper, the burst of so much honey-thick wetness that it smears up to her fingers too. "Now feel what you've done here?"

Tim's breath rasps, hot and heavy on her jaw, and then again, " _Yes_ ," a quiver of effort, all the way along, getting himself under control, " _ma'am_."

Rachel only just manages to keep her entire body from seizing up at that by tucking him deeper, fingers pressing between her soft swollen flesh in silent reward--and--ohhh, _God_ , yes. She's gently, _slowly_ , dragging his fingers and the slick they're holding up, parting herself with them, her voice still shaky but she doesn't even notice, much less care. "Then you just...bring that...up...here..." and her clitoris can be annoyingly modest at the best of times, "...like _this_ \--" but _damn_ if the pads of Tim's fingers aren't right on the button, first time. And yeah. Okay. White boy's got a _gift_.

Of course, she helped.

He's rubbing little swirls, following the motion she'd only set once, and that's...oh, that's showing good initiative, right there. _Outstanding_ aptitude. He's got the scent of her rising in the air, her eyes drifting closed, and she moans, stroking her face against his in some kind of echo of his touch under her now-lax fingers, forgetting everything else. It just feels so damn good, and Tim...she can feel the simple enjoyment in him, too, relaxing into it. She thinks if she turns her face a little more, she'll be able to feel the edge of his smile against hers. And she knows, if she does that, she'll turn even further and kiss him.

So instead she sighs, low and sweet against his cheek, so she can let him feel the pleasure he's giving her with her breath, at least.

She hears his happy little murmur, and when he asks softly, "Like this?" there's not a trace of teasing left.

"Mmm..." She's riding his motions a little, and doesn't even notice how easily his left arm across her chest releases her right when she lifts it, brushing her knuckle over his jaw, then further to comb her fingers up approvingly into the short hair at the back of his neck.

And then her eyes open.

She shifts enough to look up at him, so close, her hand tensing on his, speculatively, between her legs...and he meets her look.

"...Unless you think you're ready for the advanced course..." she whispers, heart skipping fast at the idea, and it's too late for any second thoughts because his hand has frozen in its motions, his eyes locked on hers.


	4. Chapter 4

Rachel doesn't _want_ any more time to think. It's a little awkward, legs wide and underwear stretching to accomodate as she pushes Tim's hand lower, and she honestly doesn't know if this is going to work. But she can't take her eyes away from his, caught up close and safe in his arms, and her opening is so slippery, beyond ready when she nudges his fingertip in. A tiny breath, and not thinking, and her finger's just going right on in too, clasped to the length of his by the hot clench inside her body, guiding him deeper...curling, that trigger finger in, around...just...

She gasps and bucks--the sheer speed with which he finds it, that is _unnatural_ , even with the help of her finger spooned in behind, too short to do anything but urge his longer one in a heavenly pulsing rhythm he picks up immediately.

Her hand that's in his hair is gripping him so hard it has to be hurting, and his eyes are on her, fixed on her, such fierce concentration _watching her_ , her mouth falling open, the wash of her panting mixing with his just an inch away. She's still working his finger with hers, pulling it into her, not because he needs any help at all but because she _wants_ it, wants to be part of doing this, to herself, _with_ him. She's so lost in it she doesn't even notice his other hand around her move until she feels it catch at her nipple, crushing it rough and needy through the fabric of his shirt and she jerks with a wild cry.

Her body's off, her body's _racing_ , and she--"Wait," she gasps, withdrawing and clutching his hand, "wait Tim _Tim_ \--I'm going to come--"

He stops a few seconds after she does, still inside her and she's trembling, tight. He frowns, bemused but smiling. "So come," he suggests, seconding it with a gentle nudge of his finger, holding her right on the edge but not pushing her over.

"No--I, I..." She squirms, and he backs off his pressure just enough. She drags in a breath, and another. "I want to wait for you."

Tim's frown and smile both grow. "So, I'll just get you on the second lap," he says easily, petting his thumb lightly over her clitoris, and she almost sobs. She wriggles harder, and not in a good way, and now he's _really_ frowning, drawing most of the way out until she relaxes. "Rach, you can come again, it's o--"

"No," and it comes out harder than she realized it would. She tries to soften it, it's not _his_ fault after all, and feels her eyes shut themselves tight with the effort, and she doesn't want to have to turn her face away as well but that happens too. "I...just. Usually don't, that's all."

His finger has left her completely and his hand is just cupping her, like before, strong and patient and for some reason it makes her want to sob again, Lord what is _wrong_ with her.

She swallows the sob right down, and makes it stay there. This has been a very, very trying week, she thinks, and curls the tiny amount into herself that the hold of his arms around her allow.

She feels the almost idle movement of his thumb where it's resting on her mons, soothing in its lack of demand in any direction. She feels the tilt of his chin in against her shoulder, the curiosity just as...as truly _friendly_ and undemanding as his touch. "Never?"

His matter-of-factness about it eases her enough that she can shrug, calming back into the reality of it. Some women just...don't. "Once or twice...maybe, I guess. Believe me, it's not worth the effort."

The sound he makes is muffled against his shirt's seam at her shoulder, hot plosive breath soaking through to her skin. But before she can react it just becomes a gentle hum, his hand slipping back out of her underwear to coil around her stomach again, pulling her back to him. She's conscious all over again of the hot bar of his erection against her ass, and for the first time tonight she wishes for Joe. Or at least the simplicity of Joe, the joyous rollicking approach to sex, the ease of already knowing each other's bodies. Not this too slow, too confronting, _messy_ intensity, having to grope towards understanding every step...

Tim kisses the back of her shoulder, just a quick, accepting peck--on his own shirt, and there again, she wishes she has any idea of what she'd thought "no kissing" even entailed. It has her turning her face back to see him, a far closer repeat of the look that had started them off on this whole session in the first place, and he just grins and lifts his hand to chuck her on the chin.

...It's rich with the smell of her, and she has to swallow, and concede that groping towards understanding put forth a very persuasive argument for itself.

Before she realizes it, Tim's got them both up, sitting in the middle of his bed. "Come on," he says, behind her and sliding his hands over her hips, then up. "I'm tired of letting you borrow my shirt."

Rachel blames her whirling, overloaded brain for how it takes a full second for the penny to drop. "Oh, dear," she says, shifting to allow him slowly drawing it higher with his hands traveling up her body. He pauses for a few softly squeezing seconds on her breasts, and by this point her entire body is so awake and sensitive to him that she actually moans, feeling the arousal pulling all the way up inside her sex like he's still touching her there too. But then he just continues up and she lifts her arms, and once he's got it off her, she gives him the most coquettish look over her shoulder she can make. She's got a finger on her lips in consternation, and she hooks a thumb through the side of her poor overworked underwear, slipping it a ways down her hip for good measure. "I don't suppose you have something I could borrow instead, then?"

If it weren't for the speed of it, the movement with which he gets his own underwear off would be downright graceful, rolling back up and grabbing her right around. He yanks her back against his naked shaft. "I'm considerin' it," he scrapes out, rubbing against her hip where they sit, then runs his teeth over the shell of her ear and gets both his hands around her, taking her breasts again with blatant greed.

She moans again, stretching to indulge in his hold, and then looks down. Taxing her elastic once more, she pulls the side of her underwear out and snaps it lightly around the head of him. Though it's not like he needed the help in staying pressed against her. She sweeps a look up to him, laughter on her lips. "You do that."

With a little growl he pulls her back down with him to the bed, freeing himself--and her--of her underwear with enough force that she's really glad they're a sturdy, practical pair she wears to work, which can probably handle all this treatment. And then she kicks out, squealing, as Tim tickles behind her knee on his way back up her body.

"Just checking," he says, a little breathless with laughter as he lands back beside her, and cheerfully takes her thwack on the chest. "Now--" He reaches over into his nightstand, and in about two seconds in the dark comes up with another condom, lounging himself back against pillows and bedframe. "I don't suppose anyone can tell me where this goes?"

His imitation of a lecturing instructor leaves a lot to be desired, Rachel decides, and so does his humility. She snatches it out of his hand. It's not like she's _never_ done it before, and--

She pauses, then flicks a look at his face and sits up beside him. She makes a decent start--gets it down mostly around the glans, anyway, then pauses again and frowns, examining her handiwork. She wiggles the tip of her finger at the underside, tracing his grooves around randomly for a bit. Best to be sure she hasn't missed anything that might be important. Then she tilts her head and, giving it her best concentrating look, slowly, carefully pumps her hand down to his base. Or, well, up and down...and up and down...and up...and...down...to his base. He quivers in her hand and she forces her smile down, and instead dredges up a terribly perplexed look to give him when she discovers she hasn't actually managed to bring the condom with her.

Oh, dear.

The look he gives her is _priceless_ , and his hands seem to have become fists against the bed. "Need any help?" he gets out in a voice so forcibly deadpan she just feels like cheering.

"No..." Rachel frowns at it again, happily unconvincing. Then remembers nobody ever went wrong with bringing a good positive attitude, and quavers with as much bright confidence as she can, "I got it!"

She brings two hands to it now, one pulling with conscientious attention to detail to unroll the condom in tiny fits and starts, the other investigating the covered head of his erection. After all, she got that part right so far and revision is key.

After a minute Tim's fist thumps down on the mattress, and she has to stick her tongue comically out of her mouth to hide her grinning. His neck is cording with pressing his head back against the headboard, hips held so tight he's practically vibrating with it, and the more and deeper and firmer she explores him, the less interest she has in stringing out the length of time before she can get it all inside of her.

She finishes the job in one swift pass and then finds herself _dragged_ back down to him, feeling the heaving press of his naked chest wonderfully against her naked shoulderblades.

"And here was me thinking of going easy on you," he grinds out, his left arm hooked underneath her groping up to her breast, squeezing, pinching her nipple sharply.

Any other words, she almost would have lost them in the sensation, but that isn't the kind of sentiment Rachel tends to let slide by. "What?" she asks with as much focus as she can muster, and feels when he goes still, genuinely still, behind her.

"Let me try," he says, quietly. And then she's going still, too.

For about a second, but she really only makes one weak flail to try and sit up and Tim doesn't let her succeed. "I told you--"

"Yeah. You did."

He's still half propped up behind her on the pillows, so it doesn't take much twisting to be able to glare right in his face. "Just what are you trying to prove?"

_Now_ his arms loosen, and he stares back down at her for a few seconds. "Jesus _Christ_ , Rachel," he snaps, and then his hand has hers and is slapping it back on his penis. "Here, then. Get on and get off, like last time, who gives a fuck."

In the middle of the shock, and the hurt, and the ugliness--and Rachel's honest enough to know her part in all that--she's too tired, anymore, to not just admit, "I do."

And oh, God, she didn't want to sound that miserable, but it's too late and he's breathing out, and his warm arms are pulling around her again, his mouth back at her shoulder, lips against skin. She curls her arms up around his, a little pathetically, and shakes her head. She forces her voice to sound normal. Ish.

"It won't happen," she explains. "It just...you'll waste a whole lot of time and have nothing to show for it but frustration. And muscle strain. Or chafing--"

She feels him bury his face a little deeper in her shoulder. There's no cloth between them there now, nothing to hide his quiver of laughter, the stretch of his smile against her.

"I'm _serious_ ," she insists, although...yeah, it was kind of a little funny, maybe.

He quivers harder for a moment, then he lifts his head. "Yeah. Got that." Even in the dimness, she can see it dancing in his eyes as he studies her. "Frustration, muscle strain, chafin'. Anything else?"

"The prospect of certain failure and crippling blow to your ego as a male and competent sexual being?" she says, more sharply than she intended.

Tim nods seriously, his eyes crinkling at her, making her want to laugh too and she doesn't even understand why. "Hm. Well." He strokes his beautiful, infuriating right hand softly down her, watching it, thoughtful little patterns everywhere and nowhere on her skin, and then he brings his eyes back up to hers and shrugs. "So isn't that _my_ problem?"

She stares at him. That is...just _way_ too casual for her. "I...You can't just..." But he just keeps looking at her, hand drifting, I-can't-just- _what_ , and she has no idea what to do with that. "It isn't that much fun for me, either," she points out weakly.

He nods _actually_ seriously this time. "Then if it gets to that, you let me know and I'll just...go jack off in the bathroom, or, whatever." She opens her mouth again and his eyes narrow. "Of course, like I said, I can go easy on you." His hand moves down, two fingers firm and shameless on her clitoris. "If you don't think you can handle it and all. _I'd_ have thought a woman who gives advanced hands-on demonstrations of her g-spot could try just about anything she wanted, but if--"

" _Tim_."

He quirks his mouth at her. And just brazenly keeps her in place with his left hand under her waist, rubbing bolts of quivering pleasure through her with his right, and all the while totally unapologetic for being such a manipulative little _shit_. When she doesn't say anything else, she feels him shift behind her, feels him--

She moans, sharp, when in one smooth, precise movement Tim tilts her hips back and guides himself in. And he is going _excruciatingly_ slow, he's not even rubbing her anymore, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to push back and take him faster, and other than tipping her head back with a groan she absolutely _does not move_.

It takes forever, it takes _forever_ , she's got fistfuls of his sheet she's lying on and is a fingernail away from climbing the damn bed when he finally hilts, all the way, inside, and her sob cracks open in the silent room.

It is only somewhat consoling that his voice is also showing signs of strain. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

"I do," Rachel pants, still not able to let go of the bed. "I do hate you. I hate you a lot."

He chuckles, and when he does it's a damn good thing he does it into her shoulder because if his mouth had been available to her right then she'd be kissing it and _fuck_ the rules.

"Good," he murmurs. "Then you won't have any problems telling me where to get off."

She is shaking. Her entire body is shaking, teased and touched and aroused for what feels like hours, _days_ , and now Tim is so deep inside her and he is _fucking holding still_.

She gives no thought at all to the wild spasm of her body, thrashing back against him, and she would be _mortified_ except for how there is no room for anything but how to make him _move_. But his arms have lashed around her, so tight it's just on the good edge of pain, and she tries to buck again and gets utterly nowhere. Literally nowhere. He doesn't even budge, and neither does she.

She kicks.

They're lying so flush her foot glances right off his leg, which she knows is ridiculous and only makes her want to try harder. Just as she gathers her muscles to do so, Tim draws back and thrusts emphatically hard, and every other thing in the world evaporates. She sobs again, the sandpapery scrape of his jaw against her cheekbone, the raw breathing of his larger body curled around hers, the slow, slow, incremental rocking of his hips into her sex.

He keeps it up until she's squirming, uselessly, until her fingernails are dug into his arms, until she's pushing her face against his in desperate, wordless plea.

He nuzzles back, mouth moving over her, breath hot--and he goes still, voice absolutely gutteral in her ear. " _Let me try_ , Rachel."

" _Yes_!" she groans out with every single fiber of her being, and feels it in every one of those places when he thrusts again, thrusts and _keeps on going_ , and she can move, she can _arch_ , press within the brace of his arms to take him deeper inside herself and the orgasm has been hovering even closer than she knew. Tim tucks his face in against where her shoulder meets her neck and it's not even a caress, yet it jars her open with the sweetest of cries, billowing through her, saturation so warm and whole she's moaning for it, she's filling the air with the flagrant sounds and scent of her pleasure.

She floats through it, endlessly, the gentle movement of Tim behind her, cradling her back against him, little kisses against her nape that vanish as soon as they land, long stroking fingers drawing lines at her throat that go on forever.

Rachel sighs, settling further back into him, his solidity, his touch, his leisurely rocking as much part of her as her heartbeat within her. His fingers at her neck gliding down and she hums for it, for all of it, feeling them find and flatten over the curiosity of her small cross there, distracting her a few extra moments...before noticing his motion inside her has become gradually less lazy, less indulgent.

"One down," he says, the raggedly pleased count sending a thrill through everything in her that should be annoyed, thrumming along with him moving in her, beginning to stir her pulse more than match it...pressing, measured but loose, over the spot she herself had given him the target of. She groans for the realization, and _feels_ his amusement in response.

Yet there's so very little she can do about it. So little about how so much incredible sensation unleashed through her is now beginning to circle back in, towards that place. So little about how it's even more intense as it gathers, as though it was fueled by her climax instead of dissipated.

In fact, the only thing at all she feels she could even be capable of doing about it, at this moment, is opening her mouth with the word _stop_.

Rachel opens her mouth, at this moment, and moans. Deeply.

Tim's palming both her breasts now, coaxing pressure and the occasional flick sparking across one nipple or the other or--she tips her head back to his shoulder with a whimper--both at the same time, the long thrusts against her g-spot coming just a little faster, a little harder. Her own fingers are beginning to clutch again at the bed to the pulse of it, her feet, toes curling back against his shins with it...knees drawing up just a bit higher, all on their own, she's squirming, onto him, away from him...angling to help...

"How're you doing, Rach?" he asks and right under the teasing she can hear it, how tight he's holding onto himself, breathing hard, the strain of urgency tamped down. It makes her want to moan even more in answer but some stubborn part of her refuses to give him the satisfaction, and then he continues, "Need me to go easy on you?"

She slaps her hand behind herself and digs her nails in again, only this time, it's the meat of his ass and she _does_ land a solid handful because not even his ass is as scrawny as she assumed. An observation immediately eclipsed by the way those muscles clench, surging into her, and she might have snarled or he might have or maybe it was both of them, his hips snapping and her shoving herself back to take him.

"Yeah," he grunts out, filthy and savage against the back of her neck, her spine bowing wildly for him holding her close and fucking her properly, " _I didn't think so_."

Rachel's probably clawing him with how her hands both fist up at that, but there's no attention to spare from the knowledge of her orgasm blooming distant on the horizon. It's coming, so inevitable, winding her entire body up taut, it's looming over her, poised to crash and she's--she's--she can't--

And then Tim's hand is down between her legs again, making her jerk so hard everything breaks apart and she's coming with a sob in her throat that's nearly a wail. He's still moving, all coiled up with her and working her through it, his fingers so light on her clitoris they're only reminding they're there as every throb of her body around his hard length drags some half-wounded sound out of her.

She almost doesn't hear him under it, his breath shaky, "Fuck, _yes_ ," sinking into her skin, into her orgasm like a missing piece. She moans softly and presses back into it, and it hasn't even fully left her and she doesn't even know if it's a surprise when his fingers circle on her once more, testing.

She twitches, writhes with every touch like it's touching her _everywhere_ , pushing back for it, thrusts that he's meeting, driving stronger and higher.

"Tim," she groans, whimpering even as she rides his fucking, too caught up to stop.

"Just try," he's whispering, urging, pleading, twined around her so sweet she can't even think, "just try, just try. You can." He's so sure, nosing behind her ear, lips against her skin there, jagged breath and voice absorbing in the rhythm of their bodies until it's all she knows. "You can, Rachel, you already have."

She can. She _already has_. She gasps with it, moves in it, the reality already there, part of her, she _can_.

"Tim," she breathes, her right hand down to join his, rubbing herself with him because she can, she wants to, wants to feel it coming everywhere.

He groans, speeding up into her even more, his restraint slipping even as she presses his hand closer, his wrist there, controlled black bullet lines clasped with her colors flying free. "Yes," his voice hoarse with need for her, "that's it, that's, come on sweetheart, God--yes, _yes_..."

Rachel's cry ripples out, gasping moaning elation unfurling as he moves with her, behind her, harder, losing himself in her orgasm too until his thrusts stutter deep with a sound so darkly primal it wrings another pulse of pleasure out of her, collapsing forward, barely conscious of anything but his warm weight half over her back, his panting at the crook of her neck. His faint groan, and the reflexive tightening of his arms, drawing her that tiny bit closer to him, and there is absolutely nothing left in the blissed out fog in her head but the wonderful prospect of going to sleep right there.

Which is why she moans complaint when, half a minute later, he pulls away, his movements jostling gentle but unwelcome through her near-sleep, the cool-air loss of his body against her. Then he's back, nudging her away from the damp sheets underneath her and she grumbles more, and just keeps rolling with it until she's curled around him, nuzzling a demand into his attempts to drag a sheet partway over them. He sighs something like a laugh and just wraps her close, finally, letting her slide into warm, blank, deep sleep.

When her morning alarm goes off it's like no time has passed at all and she almost misses it, so sunk in sleep...Tim's scent, bare skin, arms holding her to him...chest, naked, legs...his thigh between hers, _naked_ , the rush of drowsy arousal, the immediate impulse to wake him for round three, morning sex. The clash between that and the spiky flowering of all the sensible reasons why she can't, or at the very least really shouldn't, is what finally shakes her alert.

She manages to extricate herself without disturbing him, manages to quietly and efficiently get herself halfway presentable--there's virtually nothing she can do about her hair until she gets home, it'll be a miracle if she's not late to work--before the cab arrives, right on time, manages all of it without letting herself get distracted by the long slouchy sprawl of his naked body in bed.

It helped to not let herself even go back into the room. Now he's rolled over a little, and Rachel refuses to let herself think that it looks as though he's chasing the loss of her. Much less think about...God, _everything_ they did last night. That, and everything else, really, really needs to wait. At least until she's gotten herself the hell out of temptation's reach to tug him back, run her hand down his front, see what's going on under that interestingly curving fold of the covers around his hips...kiss him awake and see what he does, see how he'd meet her, how he'd play and how he _wouldn't_ , how he might respond to the tenderness he left her with between her legs last night, to know she's going to be sensitive at work today, just enough to heighten and invite rather than discourage...

...And clearly it was just him settling in the bed after she got out of his way, and, _clearly_ , she is not cut out for sex without attachments. She hasn't regretted doing this for a second and she hopes she's not going to, but she has a feeling the key to that is getting while the getting's good.

"Tim," she says, as soft as mornings should be, before sitting down at his side. "Tim."

He grumbles into the pillow, sounding so put out she has to laugh, still soft, and cup a hand under his face, coaxing it towards her. "Tim."

"Hmmm." His eyes slide open and find her, bleary and warm in her hold. "Hm?"

She's still laughing, a little. She strokes his face with her thumb, feeling the prickle of morning bristles under her palm. "The cab's here. I have to go."

His hair is mussed, boyishly hanging to his dark eyes that he squinches shut and open, unbearably cute and muzzy. Then he turns more fully, looking up at her in confusion. The very adult marks she's left him with are slightly faded but still rosy on his chest, he's going to be a bit tender today too, and she is very careful not to smirk, or reach down to trace them. Or offer to kiss them better.

"What time is it?"

"It's early, only 7.15. I just have to get home for--"

That only seems to increase his confusion. "7.15?"

"Yeah, I need time to--"

He's grabbing his watch off his nightstand to check, frowning now, the cling of sleep still too deep to dislodge. "...Huh?"

Rachel gives up, and lets herself have one more time of not thinking about it, holding him still and dipping down, brushing her smiling lips to the very edge of his. Too quick for him to catch up enough to do anything about it either way. "I gotta go. I'll see you at work?"

"Uh." He blinks at her a few more times, his face resting in her hand, still so softly open and kissable and she really, really needs to go. "...Yeah. Oh...yeah. Okay."

She gives his face a final stroke and stands, and it's so much easier once she's out of his cosy bed, his room, out of his apartment and staring out at the reality of the cold wet Lexington morning through the window of the cab.

In fact...it _is_ easier. She doesn't know if it's the sex, the release of so much stress, the nearly full night's sleep...the multiple orgasms--she must have had a _lot_ more stress to release than she even realized...But she feels...

New, in a strange way. Her own woman. When she arrives home and meets her mother's eyes, she feels no need to blush, or look away. She stands straighter, and Ma just nails her with a knowing grin, and offers help with her hair. Rachel smiles back, and makes it to work on time.

The first thing she does is go down to the range. Even before she puts the ear muffs on she feels it, the weight and assurance--and the strange relief of having both--in herself, her body, her bones, her muscles, pulling tall, perfect stance as she brings her Glock up, smoothly, steadily putting one round after another through the middle of the target. Magazine emptied, she examines the paper human silhouette and makes note of the results, then reloads and goes again. Just one more piece falling into place.

Even when she walks into the office and Tim looks over and, she _swears_ , sees exactly where she's been and what she's been doing and smiles just a tiny, tiny bit in a way that's just for her, it doesn't feel weird. She just smiles a tiny tiny bit back and goes to her desk--it's his day to bring coffee, and hers is next to her keyboard, piping hot. And it all just... _makes sense_ , somehow, to work with him sitting over there, with nary a hitch. Like it's changed absolutely nothing, as comfortable as it ever was, the mild hicky on his neck apparently as unremarkable to everyone around them as her own ringless finger. She doesn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes, but it...all kind of just is fine, and maybe who she is now is perfectly cut out for casual sex after all.

After a few days she's almost stopped even waiting for it to get weird. For the other shoe to drop, for it to hit her out of nowhere when she's chatting to him over a file, or catching his eye over the eternal Raylan-Harlan-Crowder saga playing out in front of them, or driving out to pick up the wife of an emphysemic bank robber who's got Art in an excited tizzy. Waiting for Tim to say or do something because they've had sex and it _should_ be weird.

But he doesn't, and she doesn't either, and the mark on his neck has faded like nothing ever happened. It's all so disturbingly normal she doesn't understand it, but, geez, if this is what diving impulse first into things gets you, Rachel needs to try it more often.

But not right now, because right now the office is Up-To-Their-Nuts Central--Tim does have a way of putting things--for the interagency task force working the bank job that's got Raylan in a worrying calmness, considering it got his ex-wife kicked in the face.

Rachel's interviewing her in the conference room, and the fact of having had a one night stand with Tim is the furthest thing from her mind by the time he comes in with the serial numbers, smiles his gentle warmth down into Winona's lovely and bruised face, and easily, casually, returns her flirty greeting.


End file.
